Then to now: A reflection on my teaching

Then: 

Sitting here reflecting on my teaching I realised how positive it is that my inquiry is so connected to my 2020 inquiry and I have picked up the practice changes I made in 2020 and for the most part this was my pre intervention teaching. See my 2020 Inquiry for details. 

The one exception to this was that in 2020 I narrowed differentiation due to Covid I have not continued to do that in 2021. 

Another example of my pre intervention practice can be seen in this Class Onair Episode

In this episode the focus is on one texts and the ability to retell the texts in detail. 

Now: 

During my Data collection stage in my inquiry I released that this was a real need for connected Vocabulary exploration and Deep diving into texts in a way that allowed for critical thinking. 

As a result I began to question having different groups focusing on different topics, theme or ideas during a week. I asked wouldn't it be great if the whole class could focus on the same theme? Wouldn't that provide opportunities for children to encounter and discuss vocabulary across instructional levels? 

This linked nicely to what Rebbeca Jesson had said in her presentation about T-Shaped Literacy for Juniors. 

So I started to begin each weeks reading planning with a Theme and a Question. 

From there I selected books that connected with the theme and books that challenges the theme. Each group has different books but the focus was similar. 

While the comprehension focus was similar, the decoding focus, words and skills each group had varied based on group and individual needs. 

The create tasks however were the same and allowed for children to think critically, write and discuss in their group and across reading groups. 

Early on in the intervention I gave them choose in the activities, however I found that completing the same activity for each text and then making comparison worked more effectively. 

Here are some examples of learning tasks

Character Description 

Word Web 

Character Dairy

Teamwork 

What I have noticed so far is an interesting amount of writing and as they become more familiar with the structure of the text the depth of thinking is increasing.